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Please give us some good information to work with. Things like "Yeah man, the site is really slow" isn't as helpful as "It's taking approximately 30 seconds or longer to load pages on average" or something similar.

Please take the time to help us with your comments as we want to ensure that the site is speedy and stable.

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

All general navigation is slow, and has been since about the middle of last week (I'd guess Wednesday or Thursday, but I wasn't keeping close track back then). Pages when called up take 3 to 5 times longer than usual to completely load. Usually the Gotmead banner comes up OK, but then the rest of the frames take a while to fill out, with the middle frames taking longer than the left side, and the right taking even longer than that. Sometimes the delays are longer than the 3x to 5x, and a couple of times I've had pages timeout before the right frames ever load at all.

Hope that helps.

BTW - Interestingly enough, this reply window page loaded with absolutely NO delay -- the first time one of the Gotmead pages has loaded quickely for me in days. Also, I've been getting a couple of unusual "Error 623: unable to find phone book entry" error messages as things are loading on the right side. BTW, I use Firefox as my browser. Maybe you're on to something

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

Yay! It isn't just me! Ok, the hard stuff first...

1. login tends to be instant
2. clicking on a topic can take 30-45 seconds average
3. I don't get many messages, so I can't help you here
4. posting is, well, just painful. It takes about 45 seconds for the page (particularly the smileys, who appear at a rate of about 2 per second) to finish loading, then using only 2 fingers, and those slowly, I outtype the refresh rate of the screen my a margin of about 2-to-1. In other words, if I spend 10 determined seconds pecking at the keys, I can then look up and enjoy 20 seconds of watching the letters I pecked appear one by one.
5. again, slow. 30-45 seconds each time I click on a link.

Let me qualify the above...

It's been like this for me since day 1. I periodically get really, REALLY pissed because I just want to find out what should be a little answer, and the process of running a search and clicking on 3 or 4 likely posts can consume 5 minutes.

I've devised a specific GotMead interaction protocol, whereby I wait for the opening page to load, click the "your new posts" button (thanks again, Vicky!), wait for that list to load, then control-click all the posts that look promising, opening each in a new FireFox tab. Then I walk away. Talk story to my boss, go for a drink of water down the hall, whatever. I'll stay away from the computer for at least 5 minutes. When I sit back down, at least a few of the tabs will have finished loading, and I start reading. I am truly reluctant to reply to posts, or originate my own, unless I really feel patient that day. It is always an exercise in controlled frustration.

I'm not complaining, just happy to be supplying data. Really! Have I complained about site performance ever? Search my posts and see! I figured it was in part a small-scale operation, in part the network at my place of employ (where I do the majority of my GotMeading), and in part my geographic separation.

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

Yes I have had some slowness recently, but it seems to be a little better today.

1. Log in- slow when using a different PC, not too slow from a bookmark
2. Click on topics- Yes
3. messages- N/A
4. posting- Yes, very slow. Timed out occasionally, which resulted in multiple posts from getting fed up and clicking alot
5. Navigation- yes, somewhat, but mostly within forums.

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

Hi Gents,

I feel your pain! I really do. I'm the worlds second most impatient person (I figure number one had a stroke already) We're working on it so keep posting as you see changes. Let us know where the slow spots are and what you're doing when you encounter them.

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

The Site has really sped up for me today, although it still returns a White Screen when I try to check my messages, both the inbox & outbox "return" a white screen when I try to access them from the "send this member a message" Message window. It also returns a white screen from the link under the GotMead Login where it says "Hey, Member, You have XXX messages, 0 are new." I haven't been able to access my Messages at all recently. Page loading today is about three seconds, yesterday and the day before it was about 45 seconds.

I have tried accessing messages with all three browsers, IE, Safari, Firefox.... They all return a white screen, although firefox does say "done" at the bottom of the browser... after it's loaded a blank page.

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

I am still getting slow response when I try to access messages using the same link as Wrath cited in the last post. I don't get a permanent white screen, but the message page takes several seconds to load (somewhere between 5 and 10) -- but the rest of the Gotmead site is loading much faster!!

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

I hear you guys. I'm trying to track down the issues, but we've dozens of programs running on the site between the main content management system and the forum.

In addition, we're running on a shared space. I'd love to go to a dedicated server, but haven't found one I can afford (and that I can trust) yet.

I am working on it, but it'll take time. I'm considering archiving some of our posts, as the size of the database for the forum is part of the problem......

The first thing I'm going to do tho is turn off the nifty little extra smileys. They will help with the reply slowness......(yeah, I know they're cool, but taking them down will speed it up.)

In addition, I'm looking into a forum upgrade, which will hopefully speed it up a bit more.

If someone out there is an SMF maven and wants to help design a layout that will mimic our main site look and feel, I'll unwrap the forum which will both give more room for the forum display, and speed up forum response time (no content management system to load at the same time).

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

Well, the wrapped forum may *not* come back. I'm messing about with creating a look-n-feel for an unwrapped forum, in hopes of speeding up the site. No decision yet, but it will likely stay this way for at least a week, or until I'm back on my feet after surgery Wednesday.

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

Grrr...
I had to use my browsers back button to get to this page. I can only see the main site page (http://www.gotmead.com/index.php), and access my messages but now every forum page or link, including the home forum page returns a blank white screen just like my message screen had been doing before.

If I look in the activity monitor of safari it gives a list of page info. This page for example shows all the following information in blue... and the size status (not shown

My Social Networking

Re: Site Slowness - Let us know if the site is slow for you

The site has been a bit sluggish lately, but I attributed that primarily to the fact that I'm still overseas and sometimes nice things like internet coverage do tend to suffer for it. Admittedly, the service here in Thailand beats the pants off of Kuwait though.

Today things seem to be moving along decently without too much delay. Normally my posts tend to etiher take forever or I get timed out so we'll see how this one goes. I'm optimistic at this point though.

If having an unwrapped appearance improves the performance of the forums, then it's a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. I enjoyed the look of the wrapped forum, but having one that works better is worth the sacrifice.

Of course, I would imagine that if more people were paying for Patron status here we would have more money available for space on the server right? *AHEM*... are you listening everyone?